Will Yahoo’s Basketball Sitcom Be the Next House of Cards?

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#### Yahoo is going to stream three sitcoms next month. But it’s not trying to be Netflix. Honest.

Yahoo is going long on content—star journalists like Katie Couric, live feeds of concerts, the Saturday Night Live archive. So it’s not surprising that under CEO Marissa Mayer it is pursuing a course that will sound familiar to Netflix subscribers or Amazon Prime members: hiring experienced Hollywood talent to produce high-quality scripted television shows “over the top” (direct via Internet). The effort is part of the company’s Yahoo Screen streaming service.

Mayer says the lure is that these series will only be available on Yahoo. “I think exclusive is something that just immediately does differentiate and that’s something that can help to set us apart,” she says. But Chief Marketing Officer Kathy Savitt gives a little more insight—the expensive video content is actually a way to test and refine the company’s personalization algorithms. Says Savitt: “Everyone immediately said, ‘Oh they’re trying to be Amazon or Netflix. No! It’s an experiment to test drive our personalization software. We just picked three world-class storytellers to create shows around deep characters, where we feel that using our personalization technology could actually guide people to those shows. Let’s see how that impacts consumption.”

Yahoo’s storytellers are Dan Harmon, Paul Feig and Mike Tollin. Harman is well-known for Community, a cult sitcom canceled by NBC after five seasons. Yahoo is picking up the 13-episode Community Season Six, which will debut on March 17, with a new show every Tuesday.

The other two shows are originals, available for binge-watching. Feig—known for Bridesmaids and the TV show Freaks and Geeks—is producing Other Space, a comedy about burned-out space explorers in the 22nd century. It features Mystery Science Theatre 3000 hosts Joel Hodgson and Trace Beaulieu, along with a robot named Art.

Mike Tollin is one of the creators of Sin City Saints, a comedy about a minor league basketball team in Las Vegas. All episodes will be available on March 23. He’s a prolific producer known for series such as Arli$$, One Tree Hill, Smallville and What I Like About You, as well as movies (Varsity Blues, Coach Carter) and sports documentaries. Since one of those docs was “Centennial: Over 100 Years of Philadelphia Phillies Baseball,” and I am a long-suffering fan of that woebegone franchise, I felt compelled to interview him. We communicated by email.

[Steven Levy] How did this deal come about—was it a project you’d been shopping around, or something devised specifically for Yahoo?

[Michael Tollin] I’d been developing Sin City Saints for awhile with a great friend and great director Bryan Gordon (Curb Your Enthusiasm, Party Down). We were looking for a platform where we’d have the freedom to tell real stories based on how things really work in professional sports, with a comedic style that mirrored some of the shows we’ve done before and long admired. Our agent David Freeman informed us that Yahoo was entering the fray, so to speak — looking to do its first original comedy series. In no time, we had an eight-episode order, brought in Chris Case to write, and were soon standing at the NewFront with Kevin Love introducing Yahoo’s first original series.

What are the pros and cons from your POV of doing it for Yahoo?

Yahoo’s reach is huge, and their sports presence is second only to ESPN on-line. They’ve embraced this new initiative, and it’s exciting to be a part of establishing a new brand and building a new audience for smart, funny and noisy programming.

Is the production process the same, including budget, as for a network or cable show? What input, if any, are you getting from Yahoo execs?

As I like to say, it’s the same…but different. Yahoo execs are still approving outlines, making notes on scripts, casting choices and rough cuts. But there’s more freedom in the storytelling and more of an excitement in creating something from scratch.

What, in your understanding, is the metric for success on Yahoo?

We feel like Sin City Saints has to cut through the clutter and drive people to Yahoo for a different kind of entertainment. The goal is less about specific numbers, I think, and more about enhancing the brand. And that entails a critical and audience response that makes the show “buzzworthy.”

Dick Allen. No question there, just noted your history and as a witness to the ’60s Phillies, I thought he needed mention.

Well, Dick Allen was my boyhood hero and became my dear friend. We’ve been making a film together for about a decade — a true labor of love. I promise to bring him on for Sin City Saints Season Two!

[Interjection from Yahoo PR Person] That was a joke! We haven’t actually made any announcements about another season of Sin City Saints.